Pilfering Pioneer: Bant Bogles

Hello internet, my name is Blue, and in today’s Pilfering Pioneer, I’m putting a deck in the spotlight designed around a pretty slippery creature (I’ll see myself out.) It dominated modern for a long time, had a home in Standard for a little bit, and is even being played in legacy by the famous Andrea Mangucci! Now it’s my turn to give it a spin in Pioneer. Without any further delay, let’s jump into the pond of Bant Bogles.

The Bogles

The thing about this deck in pioneer is that it doesn’t have access to the best creatures like in modern. We don’t have Invisible Stalker, Silhana Ledgewalker, or the namesake card, Slippery Bogle. Although we don’t have the best options, we do have some pretty decent ones with Gladecover Scout, Bassara Tower Archer, and Witchstalker. Additionally, I decided to play a couple copies of Paradise Druid as well as a little mana accelerant and a backup hexproof creature.

The Auras

Similar to the Bogles, the Auras lose out on some great cards as well, such as Rancor, Daybreak Coronet, and the Umbra cycle, but what we lose in power, we gain in efficiency. If you noticed, we’re in Bant and the addition of blue allows us to play Curious Obsession and the new Staggering Insight to keep ahead on cards and continue to play a new threatening Aura each turn. To go tall, Ethereal Armor and All that Glitters make our creatures huge, based on how many auras are in play. Lastly, to make sure we’re able to get in for damage, Gryff’s Boon gives Flying to go above blockers and Unflinching Courage gives Trample to let us go through them. Additionally, Staggering Insight and Unflinching Courage both have Lifelink to allow us to stay ahead on life against aggro.

Flex Slots

Depending on if you play Paradise Druid or not and how many copies of all the auras you play, there should be somewhere between two and six flex slots. I opted to play Detention Sphere for a little bit of removal, but there are a lot of options. You could play Teferi, Time Raveler to protect against counters, main deck Leyline of Sanctity for discard, or Season of Growth as additional card advantage. There are a ton of choices to play in the flex slots, so ultimately it’s up to you what you play. I don’t recommend playing without removal somewhere in the 75, but you don’t have to put that here as I did. You can put it all in the sideboard if you’d like.

The Lands

The lands are pretty straightforward. Green is the primary color as far as mana symbols go and all the creatures are mono green so it’s the most important color for casting creatures. Followed by that is white as every Aura requires white mana except for Curious Obsession. Finally, blue is the tertiary color and is almost just a splash for card draw spells and counters in the sideboard. With that, the deck plays almost no lands that don’t produce green compromised of various shock lands and buddy lands with a handful of basics.

The Sideboard

Finally, to go over the sideboard. This deck infamously mulligans hyper-aggressively as it can’t win without a creature, so sometimes we lose to discard like Thoughtseize. To mitigate this, the first card I put in the mainboard was the full four Leyline of Sanctity. This is a must-have against Thoughtseize decks. In addition to losing to discard, if our creatures don’t resolve, that’s just as big of an issue. For that, we get to play counterspells. You can play whatever you feel comfortable with, but I opted with Mystical Dispute to specifically fight counter magic and Destiny Spinner to turn it off completely. Additionally, Spinner has the added bonus of being a mana sink in the late game that has a really high chance of surviving since our opponents will most likely take out their spot removal. After that, I added a couple Detention Sphere‘s for a tad extra removal, Rest in Peace for graveyards, and Hushwing Gryff to help against the new Inverter of Truth combo and other decks that rely on enter-the-battlefield triggers. Below is the full decklist I have been playing, courtesy of MTGGoldfish, with paper prices. Clicking the image will take you to the full decklist.

Wrap-Up

In conclusion, I’ve been having fun playing this and I hope to get a little more fun out of it in the coming weeks. I was never really a fan of the bogles archetype, but this one feels different and I like it. Do you have any questions about the deck or any suggestions of your own? Is Staggering Insight as broken as I want it to be? Let me know on Twitter @TheRealBlueMTG! Don’t forget to follow the site as well @MTGOracle to keep up with everything Magic. This is Blue, signing out!